


Higher

by Builder



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Avocados at Columbia, Avocados at Law, Drug Use, Fever, Flu, Friendship, Gen, Human Disaster Matt Murdock, Hurt/Comfort, Matt Murdock & Foggy Nelson Friendship, Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson at Columbia, Mental Health Issues, POV Matt Murdock, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 22:07:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17989391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Builder/pseuds/Builder
Summary: Matt doesn’t say that he didn’t get a single present this year.  He doesn’t need to.  Foggy already knows, Matt can tell.  He probably observed and inferred, like a proper lawyer-to-be.  He probably noticed there weren’t any new knick knacks on Matt’s side of the room and added that to his choice to stay at school for intersession classes despite his perfect GPA.  But goosebumps prickle up Matt’s arms, half suspicion and all fever.  Can Foggy smell it on him?  His poverty?  His pitifulness?





	Higher

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr @builder051

_____

_Can you take me higher?_

_To the place where blind men see_

_Can you take me higher?_

_To the place with golden streets_

_____

Matt’s so relieved to be inside that he almost slips on the patch of bare linoleum in the doorway to his room.  His shoes are wet from wading through the soupy trenches of snow that criss-cross the quad.  It’s the first full day of classes after the holiday break, but the campus still seems winterized, as if maintenance isn’t expecting students back for a few more days.

Matt breathes in sharply and reaches for the wall, his cane dropping from his limp grip.  He’s not too impressed with the way the air burns on its way out of his throat.  He feels like he could cough up a fish hook.  And there are another 15 or so scraping around in his sinuses.

Matt almost expects to hear the tinkle of fine metal hitting the floor.  The sound of his cane bouncing off something big and hollow catches him off guard, but it brings him back to reality.  His brain makes the jump, the oh of realization, even though the rest of the faculties necessary to think in words haven’t caught up yet.

“Whoa there.”  Swiveling wheels bump over a ridge and grind to a stop on the industrial-grade carpet.  Foggy’s suitcase falls over almost immediately.  “Hey, buddy.”  His voice hitches as he bends to right it, and he hands the cane back to Matt upside-down.

The tip is freezing and gritty against Matt’s palm.  “Oh,” he replies lamely.  His ability to speak in multi-syllabic words is still offline.

“Whoops.”  Foggy straightens up and flips the cane.  Matt hears the sleeve of his friend’s sweatshirt brush the body, worn jersey swishing against worn jersey.  Presumably he’s holding out the cane and waiting for Matt to take it.  But Matt doesn’t need it now; their tiny dorm room is easy to navigate without it, even when stray suitcases pose a trip hazard. Maybe Foggy forgot.  Or leftover Christmas cheer is making him extra polite.

“Here ya go, Matt.”

Foggy seems casual enough, but Matt’s ears are ringing, and he doesn’t have enough input from his other senses to tell if he’s putting on airs.  Fear and stress induce observable changes, like quickened heart rate and a sour tang to the air.  But mild concern sounds like nothing and smells like potato chips and Downy.

A drip escapes Matt’s nose and shivers for a moment before it runs down his upper lip.  He wipes the moisture with the back of his hand, cringing a little at the savagery of it.  Foggy’s not exactly clean and tidy, but Matt still expects him to unleash a comment or two about acting civilized.

“I’ll just put it here for you.”  Foggy steps around his suitcase and leans the cane against the wall beside Matt’s bed. “Alright?”

“Hm?”  Was that a question?  Is he supposed to answer?  Matt jars himself out of the murky world of memory just as he remembers where he was criticized with such pre-Columbian terminology.  Sister… what was her name?  The one who was a missionary in Asia.  Or was it Africa?

Matt’s wristwatch slides an inch or so up his forearm, pulling hairs painfully taut between the icy metal and tender skin. He forces his thoughts through the intervening decade at warp speed, trying to focus on now.  On whatever Foggy just asked, or didn’t ask.  “Yeah,” Matt says with a wince.

There’s a beat of awkward silence, then the fan of the heater kicks on with a whine, and a gust of hot, dry air blows down from the vent in the ceiling.  Matt expects it to feel good.  Compared to the drafty halls of the orphanage, a room with a direct connection to the heating system is a luxury.  He supposes somewhere in the depths of his brain he’s glad to be rid of the chill in his bones, but the relief is lost in a slick of clamminess beading on his forehead.  A minute ago he could excuse his malaise as tiredness.  But now Matt just feels sick.

“Huh?”  It’s Foggy’s turn to be confused.  Matt analyzes his reaction like a brain teaser, grateful for the distraction from what’s quickly becoming nausea.  Foggy hadn’t uttered a full word, but his voice was full of the drawn-out, wistful cadence that comes with a stretch of the short-term memory.  He’s trying to remember if what Matt said jives with what he originally asked.

“You ok, bud?”  He must’ve decided it didn’t.  Foggy pulls his pop-up hamper out of Matt’s desk chair, spinning it around and throwing the nylon bag into a slippery heap on his side of the room.

Matt wonders if he’s pale.  He’s on the point of shrugging and saying he’s fine, but Foggy keeps talking.

“I was gonna ask if you wanted to go to a party, but I’m gonna go ahead and go with no.”  He puts his hand on Matt’s shoulder and squeezes a subtle invitation for him to sit.

The touch of Foggy’s palm doesn’t typically feel like barbed wire.  Especially not a gentle gesture through two layers of clothing.  The problem’s not with Foggy, though.  Mat knows it’s all on him.

“How’d you guess?” Matt tries to joke as he sits.  He doesn’t do a good job, but his head gives a renewed throb anyway. It’s like attempting to be funny has drained another reserve from his energy bar.  He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees, head tilted sideways and his cheek pressed against the bony ridges of his knuckles.  The difference in temperature between his hands and his face is extreme.  The whole setup feels precarious, like he could tumble forward onto the carpet at any moment.

“Oh, something about your color,” Foggy says.  He moves his suitcase again, tucking it against the foot of his bed and retracting the handle.  “It’s like the snow outside.”  He laughs sympathetically.  “And that’s not the fresh, pretty kind.”

So it’s worse than Matt thought.  He’s past pale, onto grey.  “Thanks,” he mutters.  Then, “Sorry.”  He takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes, though he’s trembling so much he practically sticks his thumb through his orbit.  It hurts, but not the spot he poked.  Pins and needles erupt under Matt’s cheekbones.  He isn’t sure if he’s going to sneeze or throw up.

“Nah, apologize to yourself, man.”  Foggy’s shoes cross the room, and Matt hears him pulling tissues out of the box. “Here.”

“I’m ok.”  Matt pinches his glasses in one hand and the bridge of his nose in the other.  He doesn’t want to let go of either.  Even thinking about moving brings a threatening knot to his throat.

“No, you’re not.  Trade you.”  Foggy snags the glasses and stuffs the tissues between Matt’s fingers.  “Like Indiana Jones.”  He’s a little less coordinated, but he laughs anyway.

“Stealthy.”  Matt sniffles and reluctantly dabs under his nostrils.  His ears are plugged up, but the sound of the Kleenex scraping against his stubble still seems loud.

“Yeah, well.”  Foggy grabs the creaky wicker basket from atop the microwave.  It was a lucky dumpster find at the beginning of the previous semester, and it’s been useful as a mobile medicine cabinet.  For as sloppy as Foggy can be when it comes to things like cleaning the shoes that got vomited on at a kegger back in October, he’s surprisingly good at staying organized.  He’d arranged all the boxes and bottles of over-the-counter remedies according to function and even offered to get braille labels printed.  Matt said no.  But thanks.  He didn’t go into the details of the smelling and feeling he uses to tell what’s what.  He did buy a clean set of shoelaces, though, and re-threaded Foggy’s Nikes one night after he was asleep.

Matt remembers the smell of beer and bile too well.  The snot he’s been swallowing all day bubbles a threat , making his gut feel tight and sore somewhere around mid-chest.  He swallows hard and tries to forget about it.

“That’s the kind of cold it’s easy to sneak up on.”  Foggy paws through the bottles of pills and packets of lozenges.  “But I think I’d hear you coming a mile away.”

“Hm.”  Matt’s positive that the chills, the nausea, the gunk in his lungs all point to something a touch more severe than a cold.  He’d stay in denial if he thought he could, but he’s beginning to seriously doubt he’ll make it to class tomorrow.  If he can even get out of bed at all.  Foggy will fuss over him regardless, but in the choice of sooner or later, Matt would prefer later.  “A party, eh?” He changes the subject.  “Bit soon, isn’t it?”

Foggy’s been back at school for, what, eight hours?  He hasn’t finished unpacking yet.  It might take him the rest of the week to see his neatly folded jeans and boxers back into his dresser, but that’s beside the point.  Who goes to a party on a Monday night?  Boozers and troublemakers.  Not Foggy.  And definitely not Matt, even when isn’t feeling like death warmed over.

“Well, maybe party is the wrong word.”  Foggy sets a sloshing bottle down on the edge of Matt’s desk, then a rattling one. “Cough medicine and ibuprofen,” he says.  “I thought we had dayquil, but looks like you’ll have to take the components individually.  Want me to dose you?”

“I can do it.”  

It’s not a lie.  Matt can.  It’s not exactly a smooth process, rubbing the pad of his thumb against the raised lines on the side of the little measuring cup, then holding his ear close as he pours, listening and feeling for minute changes in vibration when the liquid reaches the proper level.  He’s more worried about his gag reflex, and he’d rather not have an audience, just in case the syrupy medicine doesn’t go down so well.  “So…”  Matt reaches for the thread of the conversation.  “It’s not a party?”

“You ever played white elephant?” Foggy asks.

“No,” Matt replies, almost defiant in his honesty.  “I know what it is, though,” he adds quickly.  He’s not in the mood for an explanation.  Something about the concept of people buying each other lame gifts on purpose rubs him the wrong way.  The cheap stuffed animals and flimsy ping pong games the nuns handed out can be twisted into something goofy when he retells the stories, but they weren’t supposed to be.  In the years since, Matt’s flip-flopped, wondering how anyone could think dollar store merchandise would delight children who were all smart enough to know about the Toys R Us catalogue.  Then the predictable guilt hits, and he wonders how horrible of a person he is for expecting to get anything at all.

“Well, this is like the white elephant of white elephants,” Foggy prattles on.  “I guess it’s something the law students do every year?  It said annual on the flyer.”

“Must be, then.”  It must be the mucous sticking to the walls of Matt’s throat that make him sound like such a dick.  He certainly isn’t doing it on purpose.  At least, not too much.

“Anyway,” Foggy says, his eye-roll obvious.  “You bring your most ridiculous Christmas gift, or the one you’re most eager to get rid of, and pan it off on somebody else.  For example…”  He trails off as he unzips a pocket on his suitcase.  “Behold.  The Little Book of Yoga.”  Foggy reads aloud in a voice rather like an impresario announcing what’s behind the curtain at a freak show.  “Simple poses to change your life!”

Matt coughs out a laugh.  “Is that from your mom?”

“Grandma, actually,” Foggy says a little guiltily.  “I feel kind of bad giving it away, but it’s not like I’m gonna use it…”  Matt assumes he’s shaking his head.  Usually he can hear Foggy’s hair whipping around his chin, but his last thick swallow made his ears pop.  The echo is yet to die down.

“Can’t beat the logic,” Matt offers.  A wave of sickly heat washes over him again, reminding him that he meant to take off his coat and lie down.  “I don’t have anything to trade anyway.”  Matt wiggles out of his jacket, uncomfortably aware of gaping sweat stains in his armpits.  He undoes the top few buttons, just enough to lessen the constricting feeling around his neck a little.  He isn’t usually shy about undressing in front of Foggy, but today it seems unnecessarily embarrassing, like baring his body only ups the factors that make him different, that make him lesser.

Matt doesn’t say that he didn’t get a single present this year.  He doesn’t need to.  Foggy already knows, Matt can tell.  He probably observed and inferred, like a proper lawyer-to-be.  He probably noticed there weren’t any new knick knacks on Matt’s side of the room and added that to his choice to stay at school for intersession classes despite his perfect GPA.  But goosebumps prickle up Matt’s arms, half suspicion and all fever.  Can Foggy smell it on him?  His poverty?  His pitifulness?

“You could wrap up that Delsym.  Bet somebody would enjoy it.”  Foggy chuckles.  When Matt doesn’t reply, he drops into a more serious tone.  “For real, though.  Get some rest.  I’ll give you some space.  You probably got all used to life without me, and here I am, mucking things up right when you’re not feeling good.”  He laughs again, but this time it’s different. The words are only funny because they’re true.

“No, Fog, it’s fine.”  Matt stands up and toes off his shoes, as if that somehow changes the atmosphere between them. “I’m fine.”

“Matt…”  Foggy gives him a gentle push in the direction of his bed.  “Go to sleep.  You sure you don’t want me to measure out your meds?”

“I’m sure.  You go have fun.”

“Ok.”  Foggy sighs.  “If you need something, call me.  Otherwise, I’ll stay out of your way.  See if I can get some blonde bombshell to take me home for the night.”

“So…”  Matt muses, turning down his blankets.  “Back by midnight?”  He smiles, even though it hurts.

“Ten-thirty, probably.”  Foggy picks up his keys.  “See ya.”

“Yeah…”  The word still hangs in the air after Foggy closes the door.  The room feels empty without him.  Colder, too.  For as much as Matt wanted him to go, now he wishes he still had Foggy’s soft, bumbling presence to distract him from the workings of his own fevered brain.

 


End file.
